Getting Things Done Redux

Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen is a classic book in the productivity world. We’ve talked about the concepts of this method several times on this blog, and focused one of our Productivity Year sessions (session 4 to be exact) exclusively on it. So I was under the false impression that GTD was old news and that everyone was familiar with its concepts.

Just how misinformed I was became very clear when I attended a webinar on productivity recently with a number of the newer librarians on staff. The webinar was focused on David Allen’s method and 3/4 of the room admitted that they had never heard of his book. This made it clear to me that this blog was long overdue for a refresher post on the Getting Things Done concept.

In a nutshell, GTD is a productivity method that allows the individual who religiously follows its precepts to gain control of one’s life and one’s to-do list and inbox. Rather than rehash his whole schema here, I’d like to give you an updated list of places on the web where you can dive into the GTD world on your own.

After reading our blog entry linked above, I would like to selfishly point you to the GTD page from my LibGuide on Productivity Tools for Graduate Students. It includes a 45 minute presentation by David Allen himself on the GTD process, as well as links to several other sources.

8. Todd Vasquez’s Ready Set Do blog is particularly interesting to me. He doesn’t pull any punches on how Academic work does not completely lend itself to David Allen’s method. However he does explore a lot of great ideas on Workflows on a MAC.